To Deal with the Devil
by Vandr
Summary: Curing Dean doesn't turn out how Sam and Castiel had hoped. Sam refuses to give up. Alternate ending to 10x03 Soul Survivor.


**To Deal with the Devil**

Summary: Curing Dean doesn't turn out how Sam and Castiel had hoped. Sam refuses to give up.

Sam pulled the last needle out of Dean's arm, his arm now covered in needle tracks. Dean is slumped over, head hanging. He's been out for awhile, knocked unconscious by Castiel so they could get the demon tied up again in the dungeon.

He moves away, exchanging the empty syringe for the metal flask of holy water.

"What the hell are we doing to him, Cas? I mean, even after I gave him all that blood, he still said he didn't want to be cured, that he didn't want to be human," Sam asked, upset.

Crowley had been sobbing about wanting to be loved by this point, his humanity nearly restored. But with Dean, there was nothing. He'd been sure it had to be working; he'd escaped the devil's trap after all. But on the hand, he had no proof that the trap was holding him to start with. Dean could have been messing with him the whole time.

"Well… I see his point," Castiel studied the unconscious figure. "You know, only humans can feel real joy, but … also such profound pain. This is easier."

Sam unscrews the cap as Dean starts to stir suddenly, his head jerking. Sam and Cas lean forward hopefully, studying him. Black eyes clear to green, and blink up at Sam in a daze. Sam holds his breath, feels his heart pounding in his ears. He lets himself finally believe that things were going to be okay.

Until Dean's eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped into the ropes holding him to the chair like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Dean!" Sam yelled, leaping forward. Dean was too still, his chest wasn't moving. He reached for his brother, felt for his pulse clumsily with the fingers of his left hand. _Nothing_. "No, no, no! Dean!"

"Cas, help me get him untied," he begged as he pulls frantically at the bindings one-handed.

"Sam..." Castiel wasn't moving to help. Sam finally got his brother free and pulled him off the chair to lie flat on the ground. His body was dead weight, and awkward to move as Sam began chest compressions one-armed, trying to force his weight into the movement to make up for being unable to his dominant arm. He counted out the compressions carefully, probably moving too quickly, and then pinched his brother's nose to breathe deep into his lungs.

"Dean, c'mon! Please!" It wasn't working. After several desperate cycles of compressions and breaths, Sam turned to the re-empowered angel with a strangled sob.

"Help him Cas, please! Bring him back," Sam begged, tears in his eyes.

"Sam, I can't. He's gone," Castiel said quietly from where he stood a few feet away.

"No! What are you saying, he was fine a minute ago, it was _working_! You have to do something."

"I suspected this might happen," Castiel hesitated.

"What?" Sam demanded, feeling angry that Castiel had kept something important from him that might have kept his brother alive. "What did I do wrong?"

The angel sighed. "Your brother died months ago Sam."

"No, the Mark brought him back," Sam shook his head in disbelief. "Dean was alive _minutes _ago, Cas."

"No, Sam. I always believed it possible that when the Mark brought him back as a demon, that the demon possessed his own corpse. Because the demon was inside him Sam, they don't have physical bodies. They don't usually turn into demons so quickly though, so they wouldn't be able use their own bodies," Castiel explained slowly. "And now that you've cured the demon, the flesh is still dead."

Like Meg, Sam realises sickly. They'd exorcised the demon, one of their first exorcisms. And the human, Meg Masters had died within minutes; body bleeding out from injuries inflicted on her body while she was possessed. Dean had already been dead for half a day when he had awoken as a demon.

"So what I cured him just so he could die? Where is he then? Is he just out there somewhere, like _Kevin_ is, unable to pass over, and unable to return?" Sam demanded angrily. "No! I don't accept that. You can bring him back. You brought him back after Hell, after his body was four months dead and buried. Fuck, Zachariah brought Adam back after we _burnt_ his body. You can bring my brother back, Castiel! Do it, or I don't ever want anything to do with you again!"

"I _can't_ Sam, I want to. Believe me I do. Dean was my friend. I once fell for him. I've killed for him, died for him," Castiel sighed, looking almost as devastated as Sam. "But with Heaven closed, I'm weakened. There isn't an angel alive who is still strong enough to raise a life from the dead. We lack the connection to the souls in heaven that we once had. We can barely even heal the living anymore."

"Get out," Sam hissed, tears pouring from his eyes.

"I really don't think I should leave you alone right now," he reached for Sam awkwardly in an attempt to comfort but Sam jerked away from the movement.

"Get out! Get out!" he shrieked, voice choked with tears, "You've done enough. Leave us alone!"

The angel backed away, arms held out in appeasement.

"If you should ever need anything, Sam... You are also my friend," Castiel offered gravely. "You have my number of course, and I'll listen for your prayers. My friend Hannah can also be trusted."

"Unless you can bring Dean back, don't bother," Sam said bitterly.

Sam didn't watch as one of his last friends in the world left the room. He let the broken sobs he'd been restraining wrench free from his throat as he curled up next to Dean's body. He pressed himself against Dean's side, pulled Dean's arm loosely around his own body and rested his head on his brother's right shoulder. His bad arm ached were it was trapped between their bodies. He ignored it. It was irrelevant.

He couldn't concentrate on anything but crying and yelling into his brother's shirt. Dean didn't move, his green eyes stared vacantly ahead, never blinking. Sam lay there for hours, he didn't sleep. He was exhausted, bone tired. But his mind kept trying to process what had happened.

Somewhere in between ragged mental cries of _no, no, no, Dean, _Sam tried to think of a way to get his brother back. They'd both died and been resurrected so many times. Sam knew more on the subject than any other human alive. Surely there was something he could use.

The angels couldn't do it, not unless Sam could work out a way to open Heaven. And with thousands of angels working on that and failing, there was nothing he'd be able to come up with to help - unless he was willing to deal with Metatron and could convince Castiel to hand him over.

The bastard who'd killed his brother to start with, was also the one who sealed Heaven a year ago when he cast all the angels out. Sam knew he couldn't do that though, he couldn't make a deal with the dick who'd killed his brother. And the only thing he had to bargain with the angel with anyway was his freedom, and he couldn't allow the scribe to be let loose to try and take over the world _again_. His first action would be to take out both the Winchesters permanently. And as much as the Winchesters were used to creating bigger problems to deal with their problems, it would be a betrayal to Dean's memory.

Demons could bring back the dead, had brought Sam back from the dead. But none of them would deal with Sam, they had all learnt to steer clear of him when he'd been looking for Dean over the last six weeks. Crowley might hear him out, out of some obscene affection for Dean, but they'd _tried_ that route already. Crowley's solution had been to bring Dean back as a demon. Sam wasn't prepared to live with his brother as a demon, not when he'd shown no concern for Sam.

And really, if he allowed a demon – even a demon version of his brother- to possess Dean, how was that any better than when Sam was wondering around soulless? Without a soul, without his humanity, with the soul still trapped _somewhere_, what was the point? It had to be all or nothing.

Sam still had nothing.

"Sa-aaam," a voice sing-songed. Sam didn't answer the familiar voice, used to disregarding his constant companion of the last four or so years.

"Oh Sam, don't _cry_," Lucifer crooned. "Only I'm allowed to make you cry."

"Go away," he muttered. What was the point really? He was only holding on to his sanity for the sake of his brother. Why bother ignoring the devil now?

"Sam, now you know I don't like that name," Lucifer answered his thoughts as much as his words. The archangel dropped to the floor to lie on his stomach, resting on his elbows so he could gaze at Sam. "And you really should listen to what I have to say. After all, _I know how to bring him back,_" he sang the last line.

Sam lifted his head. Lucifer wasn't really there, he _knew_ that, but he was part of Sam's subconscious. The part that had played host to an archangel and shared his thoughts. The part that knew things that Sam couldn't remember usually, that his mind had hidden and compressed because millennia of memories were not something his conscious mind could handle. He might actually know something.

"Tell me," he pleaded, fingers clenching useless in the fabric of Dean's shirt. "I'll do anything."

"Funny you should say _anything_, Sam. Because you see, when little bro said there was no angel alive that could bring your brother back, he wasn't quite right was he? Because there are still _two_ archangels alive who absolutely could help you - if we weren't trapped in that pesky cage anymore."

"Why would they help me?" Michael and Lucifer both had Sam and his brother to thank for their current predicament.

"Why wouldn't we? If you found a way to free us, or one of us - me preferably just in case you want my vote - you could ask us for anything you wanted. You could bind me to my word, you know it's possible."

Sam hesitated, but from the slow smile of satisfaction on the blond's face, he knew he wasn't fooling the Morningstar. "They hurt me, for centuries."

"Did we?" Lucifer questioned. "Are you sure? I mean we were _there_ the whole time you were in the cage. But don't you remember? I was being hurt too. The cage was built to punish _me_ Sam, wouldn't have been much of a punishment if I could spend centuries having fun inflicting pain on an enemy. But if I had to watch while _my_ vessel, _my_ Sam who was _made for me_ was hurt for centuries? Well, I think that would have been torture for me. I love you, Sam. You are mine, and I will help you. You just have to free me."

_The devil lies, _a voice in his mind whispered.

"I've never lied to you, Sam," Lucifer insisted. "I don't need to."

Sam levered himself up from where Dean's body was slowly stiffening.

_'We don't get to quit in this family – this family is all we've ever had!' _he'd said to Dean earlier. This had to be a better idea than eating a bullet. Dean was still out there somewhere, unable to get into Heaven where he could rest. Sam had to do something. And this honestly couldn't be much worse than the deals and compromises he and Dean had made with the King of Hell.

This might work; he could bind an archangel with a contract, keep the world safe, maybe open Heaven up again. And more importantly get his brother back and remove the Mark that had been given to Cain by Lucifer. Though honestly, if he had to compromise, he could live with just one out of the four.

"Forgive me, Dean," Sam whispered into his brother's ear.

He forced his aching body up to his feet, and faced the now-standing archangel. He would break into the cage to deal with the devil, in exchange for Dean. Only one problem now though.

"I don't know how."

Lucifer smiled.


End file.
